Page 104 of Encounter

“He just... spoke about watching the cat for you,” I said quickly. I felt like getting caught knowing something I should’ve. Something he didn’t want me to. “N-Not much else.”

Sniffling, he flashed a strange smile and tilted his head down, opening his fist to tap his fingers on the table. The atmosphere turned heavy.

“I guess I should probably tell you about her. About Lydy.” His wife? Drawing my brows together, I squeezed my hands together in my lap to stop them from fidgeting. Chast didn’t really sound like he wanted to tell me about her. Why... What did it have to do with anything, anyway? Why now?

“When we were both twenty, we moved in together and finally got far away from our shitty hometown... Lydy got us the cat as a surprise,” he said, smiling softly, “and was about to start studyin’ to be a social worker.”

Judging by that picture, she seemed like that type of person—good-hearted, caring.

“We were drivin’ home one night. Was Sunday... Not a soul on the road, all peace and quiet, and we talked about some... lamp she wanted to buy, or somethin’ stupid like that.” Slowly, his face and tone both shifted from reminiscing to monotone and low. “This car came speedin’ out of nowhere, from behind the bend. Must’ve been drunk or reckless, or— There wasn’t time to do anythin’. We got thrown off the road, down a hill, and into a tree.”

Oh god.I wanted to tell him to stop. No matter how much he tried to hide it, or how long ago it happened, I saw how it affected him. Like the Chast I had known completely disappeared, replaced with this person sitting in front of me—shoulders low, eyes fixated on the floor, voice close to breaking...

“Finally came to and umm— There was glass and leaves everywhere. And Lydy... wasn't next to me.” As if he was confused, Chast frowned and blinked a few times.

When he exhaled and leaned back in the chair, scratching his beard, I had to remind myself to keep breathing.

“I looked around and started panickin’. I didn’t get what was happening. I didn’t... even realize she didn’t put her seatbelt on—we were only drivin’ a few miles, so she probably felt like she didn’t need to.” The grief in his voice was palpable, to the point it made my chest painfully constrict. “There was nothin’ I could do. I s-somehow got out and searched until I found her on the ground. Blood was comin’ out of her mouth, and I still remember the sound of it in her throat— The... raspy, gurgling sound.” His face twisted with even more hurt, and so did mine, like I was mimicking Chast’s emotions. “Lydy was... She was lookin’ at me in this way, like... She was lookin’ at me like s-she was trying to calmmedown, even though she was the one who—”

When he blinked and glanced up at me, I froze. His eyes, glazed over and raw, ran over my face before he retreated again, hiding them from me with his hand.

“Even as she was chokin’, and... the light fucking left her eyes, she still smiled at me. Still consoled me.”

What should I say? How does one react to hearing something like this?

“Wh—”

“It happened on October nineteenth. Nineteen years ago.” He pronounced those words as if they meant something massive, and it took my shell-shocked mind a few seconds to realize what he just said.

Frowning, I straightened my back and half opened my mouth. “That’s my—”

“Your medical record says you were born around eleven fifteen. The crash, Lydy’s— It happened sometime after eleven. The same night...” I was so used to his eyes, so confident and firm, constantly monitoring me, that now when he did the exact opposite, I became freaked out. He sounded ashamed. Angry. Lost.

I’m confused. What is he talking about?

I was born on the same night. Not long after the accident.Thatwas what the date meant—why did he highlight it?

It was a connection. Our...onlyconnection? Confused by his guilty face more than anything, I knew there was more to it than that, so I tried—

Before my brain even registered it, something ripped through my chest. A ravenous emotion, deep and intense. I hung my mouth open, staring ahead, as the thought echoed through my mind, but somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to accept it for a moment.

She died, and I was born. Chast saw that date. At the beginning, when I meant nothing to him. To someone like him, a person like me could never mean anything—never should’ve—unless... he saw me as something else. Someone else.

Frowning, I narrowed my eyes, sensing the pressure and warmth the tears in them brought, but felt too numb to process the actual emotion causing it. “You... You thought—” Chast’s face ahead of me was hazy. His eyes now only brown smudges, fixated on me.

This entire time, I had been wondering how I got so lucky for someone like Chast to care about me, to careforme.Recently, I even started telling myself that it was only the critical voice in my head, trying to ruin my life as always. I even convinced myself that maybe Chast really, truly liked me for me.

That was all a lie.

All of it... was lies. I was never what he cared about. It was her—his wife, his love. Hisreallove.

“Galen.”

I jerked away and jumped out of my seat when he tried to touch me. Feeling like I was hit by merciless waves in the middle of a stormy ocean, I stepped back, sniffling and brushing the tears off my cheeks.

“Galen, are you listening to me?”

“Shut up!” I shouted, further losing control over my body, my breathing, my mind.

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